Previously: Podcast 14.0A, 14.0B, 14.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver.

TIGHT END: IT'S BEEN FOUR YEARS AND I HAVEN'T COME UP WITH A GOOD REFERENCE

RATING: 4.5

Depth Chart

Flex	Yr.	Inline	Yr.
Erick All	Sr.	Luke Schoonmaker	Sr.*
Carter Selzer	Sr.*	Joel Honigford	Sr.*
Matt Hibner	Fr.*	Karsen Barnhart	Jr.*

You write about things on the internet and you're like "oh dude this guy's last name is a common English word" and then absolutely nothing comes to you. Nothing good, anyway.

This position group has two established senior starters who are on NFL radars, plus a couple of sixth-year guys who will chip in and a horde of younger folks lifting weights and biding their time. The only thing separating this spot from a 5 in our ratings is the lack of an out-and-out All-American sort. Seth thinks Michigan has one but that's an opinion that's not (yet) shared by others, who consistently rank Michigan's tight ends in the 6-15 range nationally.

That's still pretty good. Michigan can go five wide when that's advantageous and they can beef up when that's advantageous. It's all about flexibility.

ALL IN THE FAMILY?

moment of the season [Patrick Barron]

Bah. That sucks, unlike ERICK ALL. When you do the UFRs you find guys, and then you bang on the table for your guys. My first guy was David Molk, who reached all those mofos in the Rodriguez years. Seth's guy was All. He was already pleading for All to get All Big Ten nods after the Ohio State game…

… it’s a crying shame that people are looking at Peyton Hendersot, who does not block, and Barry Alvarez’s grandson, who had a terrible season, over Erick All for the all-Big Ten tight end. I would hear you out if you talked about Nebraska’s guy, but Erick All has done more for Michigan’s running game this year than any lineman, the last bit of it while injured.

…and then he was more or less the only Michigan player who looked like he could whoop Georgia's ass if he just had ten clones:

All's UFR numbers are eyepopping.

ERICK ALL

Game	Plus	Minus	Tot	Notes
WMU	6	3	3	Used as a fullback. Good at Mason things.
Washington	11.5	5	6.5	Hesitation issues, but thumpin'. One -2 might not be on him.
NIU	13	0	13	Michigan has a fullback.
Rutgers	11	1	10	Going to earn a star for blocking. Main offensive weapon after RBs.
Wisconsin	5	2	3	Mostly kicks on OLBs but positive day vs THOSE LBs is pretty good.
Nebraska	8.5	2.5	6	Turned two leaks into first downs, Neb schemed around his blocks.
Northwestern	20.5	2	18.5	He's going to be All-Big Ten this year.
MSU	17.5	5	12.5	And an awesome day receiving. All-Big Ten lock.
PSU	9	5	4	Limited duty, rusty targeting, a play for the ages.
Maryland	3	3	0	Gingerly working back, some of his issues might have been RPS.
OSU	11.5	2	9.5	Kicked linebacker ass.
Iowa	10	2.5	7.5	Even with the drop was the best TE on the field.
Georgia	18	3	15	Swear words but in a good way.

I think some of this must be down to grading styles because I never had a tight end even approach these numbers over the course of a season. A game or two here and there, sure, but +15 and +18.5? No. He did get some support from PFF takes, FWIW. Expectations for All are through the roof for a specialized cadre of tight-end attenders that more or less starts and ends with MGoBlog staff. Oh, and Dave Revsine:

"Erick All … holy cow. There just aren’t guys who look like him, who run like him."

Yeah, man. Erick All. You will find none who would dare slander Erick All. Except… Erick All?

“I feel like Schoony, he gets the run game better,” All said at Big Ten media days last month. “He gets the technique and stuff better. He does that in the run game, and I feel like in the pass game I’m more natural to it. But Schoony is a beast. Schoony is a beast. He’s big, strong, fast — really fast. I feel like that’s the more unappreciated aspect of him is people don’t realize how fast he is.”

This was hands-down the second-most baffling quote of the offseason. (You will find #1 in the defensive ends preview.) I loved Erick All's blocking when he was a freshman stick. At times last year it seemed like Seth was re-enacting the should have sent a poet scene from Contact. And this quote. WTF?

Best we've got is that occasionally All would miss an assignment. When he made contact he was able to stick with small guys in space…

TE #83 to top pulling across formation

…give the business to linebackers…

…and wash defensive ends slanting away from him:

More than anything else, All is the tight end in the history of UFR who really wants to block more than anyone else, the occasional OL or Martell Webb excluded. Even when he was a fawn at the beginning of his career he threw himself into blocks in a way that Butt or Gentry did not. That want-to persists. SI on his draft prospects:

Variety of alignments means multiple assignments in the run game, all of which come easy. Can come down and crack edge players to kick out the backside. Will pull into space and engage with play-side linebackers, creating gaps in the game. Nightmare for DBs as he gets on them quickly and drives them to the parking lot. A tough player that has the ultimate competitive stamina and drive to push through fatigue and injury.

And the Draft Network:

He is a more than willing blocker and puts up good effort to secure his assignment. As a lead or slice blocker, his approach consists of toughness and physicality. … Consistency as a blocker is lacking due to technical flaws.

A couple of these guys point out that All has not generally preferred to secure a block; instead he goes in with as much momentum as possible to shock a guy back even if that means the guy is not engaged for very long. I would counter with the blocks in space above: All has an excellent sense for when he's got a DB he can escort into the sideline and when he's got a guy with 30 pounds on him he cannot adequately contest without bringing it. Another 10 pounds from this offseason should help convert the wild momentum blocks into something more sustainable.

All broke out as a pass catcher. His first few years at Michigan were disappointing for a dude who came in with a reputation as the guy who catches absolutely everything. Routine drops meant there wasn't a lot of production. That changed in 2021. The drops were gone—we had him 28/28 on routine balls—and he brought in a solid clip of tougher opportunities. Michigan loved that little TE delay that almost always went to him, and he had a couple opportunities to display impressive body control for a 240-pound guy:

There was also this wheel route against Wisconsin:

A man that big plucking the ball that casually: that's Funchess territory.

Michigan targeted him down the seam to good effect and when he had an opportunity to run after the catch he rumbled surprisingly fast for a TE. This was most evident on the big play against Penn State when cornerback Kalen King couldn't make up enough ground in half a football field:

Or the flea flicker against Iowa where Riley Moss, the Big Ten defensive back of the year, made up zero ground even after he'd recovered into full flight:

All looked like he was on par with Georgia in this department, too, catching JJ McCarthy's throw of the year in between three defenders and bringing in a contested seam that was flung in the #buttzone:

The biggest complaint Seth had last year was that Iowa interception where All got one of those delays thrown well behind him and dumb luck sent the deflection to an Iowa linebacker. And, like… okay. That'll do.

One thing we didn't see much of from All were stick routes underneath. He got loose against Michigan State for one third down conversion, but last year's Michigan State back seven was a coverage train wreck. Those NFL scouting reports cited above tend to talk about a lack of separation as a negative ("not the most explosive or fastest tight end"; "isn't agile for a tight end … might have real trouble getting open at the next level'). It's unclear how important that's going to be for the team—you've got Bell, Donovan Edwards, etc., who can fill that role.

The other gap in his resume are #buttzone catches, but we saw the ability there. The lack of quarterback YOLO is probably more responsible for contested All efforts than any deficiency on his part.

As with anyone on this team, projecting buckets of targets is foolhardy. All should maintain last year's production, and that should be good enough to be the best tight end in the conference, give or take Iowa's Sam LaPorta. A mid-round NFL draft selection is next up.

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE SCHOONMAS

Brutal! Please do not picket my house.

"what are you going to do, stab me?" –ball stabbed [Patrick Barron]

Anyway, LUKE SCHOONMAKER was one of those random 6'6" guys with no neck who is the largest person to ever exist in North-South Broylsden, New Vermont. Naturally, he became the high school quarterback, and just as naturally Jim Harbaugh swooped in to make him a collegiate tight end. We always say to check back in on that guy in year three, and last year was that year—give or take some COVID chaos.

Schoonmaker is big and fast and developing, but not quite there yet.

AS A BLOCKER, Schoonmaker was… variable. Here's his season per UFR:

Game	Plus	Minus	Tot	Notes
WMU	4.5		4.5	Caved a few edges.
Washington	7	7	0	Not much different than Honigford.
NIU	8.5	3	5.5	There be donkeying here.
Rutgers	8	5	3	Should've had a TD, but still a clumsy route runner.
Wisconsin	3	11	-8	Got Sanborn'd. Blew a couple of assignments too.
Nebraska	13	6	7	Michigan runs on Schoon.
Northwestern	6.5	8.5	-2	Secret reason M is better at power than zone stuff (he is).
MSU	8	4.5	3.5	Solid day vs meh linebackers.
Indiana	5.5	7	-1.5	Did some things, is no Erick All
PSU	4.5	8	-3.5	Asked to do super-hard things against Ebiketie and Luketa.
Maryland	2	4	-2	Is no All or Hongiford but something in between. Also very open.
OSU	9.5	4	5.5	Closed the game with some of his best ass-kicking yet.
Iowa	9	2	7	…balled out.
Georgia	1	2	-1	Wasn't Iowa out there.

Historically, you need a 2:1 positive to negative ratio as a team to have a good day on the ground. Schoonmaker hit 56%. That's short of our Mendoza line. HOWEVA! I do not have numbers to back this up but usually the tight ends are a drag on the overall team rating, because a lot of the time they're asked to block DEs. Meanwhile the OL sometimes get to block LBs. Seth pointed out that game against Penn State where he was supposed to do the blocking things against PSU DEs and didn't do that well. You see how it goes.

So while he may not compare to All in our grading, he's at least replacement-level as a blocker. When he got an opportunity to latch onto a guy in space it was a good time.

He had the agility to redirect and boot LB/DB types to the sideline using his biglargeness, most of the time. When he came up against an All Big Ten-type guy who had all the technique in the world (read: Wisconsin linebacker, any year) things went badly for him. Here he catches Sanborn and gets shed despite having an advantage at the snap:

TE in slot to near side

The good news is that Schoonmaker seemed to learn from the hiding Sanborn gave him, and quickly. Seth on the next game:

And holy bounceback for Schoonmaker!

Nebraska linebackers versus Wisconsin ones made a big difference, but I definitely thought Schoonmaker came out tempered and honed after his trip through Sanborn/Chenal hellfire. …he got to be the star of one of those announcer replays where they pretend they understand and appreciate blocking much more than they do. In this case their appreciation is appropriate:

Getting through the gap with speed and control is hard. Stopping a guy’s momentum so that he is useless in pursuit even after the ballcarrier goes by his hard. Filiaga had a great block downfield and Henning had the best block of his career, but the play starts with Schoonmaker’s pop.

Defensive ends? Well. If he got a chance to block down on a Northern Illinois guy it went just fine. As mentioned, Penn State DEs ate him up.

So then what about that quote from All? We remain as baffled as we were earlier in the post. Our best guess is that Schoonmaker was doing stuff we didn't always catch, and that most of this had to do with following esoteric blocking rules. All came in for some missed assignment dings last year, which was almost never Schoonmaker's problem, and we did catch a couple of on the fly adjustments that seemed pretty good. Here against MSU he initially believes that he's going to have to get a guy coming off the edge; when that guy backs out he's able to redirect and pop a charging linebacker:

TE inline to bottom

In the Big Ten championship game he had the ability to climb over a guy attacking him in the backfield on a Cornelius Johnson end-around:

TE to bottom pulling across formation to top

That's both impressive awareness and agility to not get hung up on a guy who has no shot at your end-around and also be useful after a block that would have eliminated a lot of players.

Schoonmaker is old enough that expecting him to get a ton better is a little fanciful, but because of the high school quarterback thing he should have more runway here than your average fifth-year player. This draft evaluation is on point:

…. reliable blocker from in-line and the slot. He’s able to crack down and seal ‘backers on outside runs. …lacks sustainability as a blocker. After the initial set point, he does not show the lower-body strength to anchor at the point of attack. Lowering his pad level and activating his hands quicker can improve this issue.

That's something he can improve on; he has all the physical ability he needs to be on another level from your Zach Gentry/Jake Butt jumbo WR types. Quietly a swing skill for the offense.

THE OTHER HALF of a tight end's game was late-developing. Schoonmaker didn't catch a pass in the first four games. He was still well behind All in the pecking order even afterwards, but in his 17 catches he displayed a considerable amount of promise. His best catch was not technically, you know, a catch, but even so got dang:

Michigan used him underneath some in that game—which was without All—and it went well. He scored a touchdown with a minor application of the dark arts of OPI. Here he uses the jam point to rock back the DB and give himself the space he needs:

That's Micah McFadden he beat there, no small potatoes. While Schoonmaker had limited opportunities as a receiver he felt more polished there than as a blocker. We had him for zero routine drops; tougher passes didn't have enough sample size to really mean anything. And when Michigan tried the "giant fast person down seam" play against Iowa it looked like a thing to repeat:

Michigan did try the Gentry seam earlier; Schoonmaker got a yard or two of separation but a short throw allowed the defender to make a play on the ball. We haven't yet seen him targeted in the #buttzone. Both of those seams were not box-em-out high point opportunities, and the stuff more to the outside has been spectacular one-handed stab territory.

Schoonmaker's role should be more or less the same in 2022. Goals are to survive better against top-end competition on the ground and grab a few more of those seams.

BACKUPS: BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE ALLS

…

OK, that one's pretty good. All is forgiven. Alas. Now nothing is forgiven.

ANYWAY.

Because Harbaugh, Michigan has a bunch more dudes down here. The pecking order is almost completely unknown. Realistically, the guy who's going to get the most snaps is going to be the guy they like to add for goal line packages. Trente Jones has graduated to a starting tackle so if there's an OL wearing 80 KARSEN BARNHART is likely to be the guy. He's addressed more fully in Seth's upcoming OL post.

As far as rostered tight ends go, Harbaugh listed three guys at Big Ten media days: "Honigford, Selzer, Hibner." So: those guys.

pumping it up [Patrick Barron]

JOEL HONIGFORD is an OL-ish blocking TE who returns for a sixth year, because last year he in fact converted from OL and lost a bunch of weight. To what end is uncertain because it's not like targeting him was ever an option. And the weight loss did not appear to be good—please don't tell the phonebooks. Seth somewhat inexplicably had a section on him after the opener:

Yeah, so dropping down to 259 from 300 didn’t do him any favors I think. Michigan still didn’t use him at all in the passing game—he was ignored by the QBs and defense alike the few times he ran a route—and his past effectiveness as a sixth OL was nerfed. Michigan’s RUN BY GOD game plan meant to feature Honigford heavily, but WMU’s decision to put the DEs on edge duty was the kind of matchup that should have gone Michigan’s way if they were running out a Hoss and didn’t because Honigford was just sort of a tight end:

#84 at the top of the formation

I thought Erick All did a much better job at the violence—his shoulders came with ferocity and budged guys.

Things proceeded much in that vein for the rest of the season. He did clobber a few guys, particularly against Washington and Iowa. Those were offset by situations where maybe an OL gets more push and maybe a TE steps around a guy to seal him off but Honigford wasn't quite either and the block was lost. Maybe getting used to the new size will help things but improvement for a sixth year guy isn't likely to be huge.

We'll always have this, though:

I always love it when program guys get an NFT to put on their headstone. Also, Honigford is the program legend who brought us the Dutch techno:

When Honigford introduced the song to his teammates later in the summer, it drew rave reviews. “Pump It Up” blasted during teamwide stretches and roared during the infamous “Beat Ohio” drill as a way to turn the intensity up a notch. The coaching staff embraced it, too — one time after practice, the defensive staff ambushed the players’ cold pool while the song blared in the background.

Ahead of the season opener against Western Michigan, Honigford made a request: Play “Pump It Up” at least once.

When you type his name into Google one of the autocomplete options is now "pump it up." That's a legacy.

Fellow sixth-year guy CARTER SELZER is a walk-on who found some playing time when All was out against Indiana. We have a few clips of him blocking in space fairly well or getting to the second level. Selzer is 6'8" and not particularly thick so he's unlikely to get the call on short yardage. He did narrowly miss a diving circus catch in the Indiana game. Scattered snaps at best.

Hibner (88) is the vanguard of the new generation [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

As far as guys who will be around in 2023 go… uh… be patient. Based solely on experience, MATT HIBNER [recruiting profile] is in the on-deck circle. Hibner has the kind of backstory—190 pound pencil-neck eating 7000 calories a day until he's thicc and athletic—that makes you optimistic that he can be the kind of obscure, unbalanced maniac who thrives as a Harbaugh TE. He got some garbage time last year as a redshirt freshman. He had a nice kickout block on the long Edwards rushing touchdown and gave Braiden McGregor a little business on a goal-line carry in the spring game. With two NFL prospects, a couple of super-experienced walk-ons, and OL du jour in front of him this is going to be another apprenticeship year. In 2023 he should be ready to go.

Redshirt freshman LOUIS HANSEN [recruiting profile] and true freshmen COLSTON LOVELAND [recruiting profile] and MARLIN KLEIN [recruiting profile] have a 0% chance of seeing meaningful snaps without a zombie apocalypse, but here's Loveland on the receiving end of an All double pass in the spring game:

Loveland is about 30 pounds from being a plausible tight end but folks are already talking him up as the next one. New TEs coach Grant Newsome has an addiction to the world "really" about both:

Both those freshman tight ends are really good. They both have had really, really good camps and I’m excited to see how they both develop. But Marlin, as well as Colston, they have a lot of physical tools that are going to set them up to be really, really good players here.

It's a Harbaugh team, the tight ends are always going to be good.

Finally, in walk-ons who might be a thing: MAX BREDESON was notable enough in the spring game to field some questions about who the hell Max Bredeson is other than the brother of Ben Bredeson. Newsome:

He fights his tail off every single day. He can go up and he’s super, super athletic, can make plays in the passing game and also is extremely physical in the run game. He’s had a really, really good camp and I’m excited to see what his career holds here. But I think he’s going to play a lot of games for us.

Seth swore up and down this could be the fullback I've been bitching about since Ben Mason exited the program. At 6'2", 232 he's not there yet. But he's not 6'5", and if he's 6'1" on next year's roster I'm listening. Harbaugh said he'd "surged into that two-deep" behind the two starters… along with three other guys. Michigan's tight end two-deep has six guys on it. Harbaugh!